by Jax Garren
Emma shrugged, her face heating in embarrassment. “The letters, they just jump and jumble all over the page—numbers, they do that too.”
“Dyslexia?” Dez asked.
Emma shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe? I’ve never been tested for anything. They just said I was stupid when I went to school. But I know I can’t run a business by myself if I can’t read and I can’t keep books.”
Dez’rae blinked at her, like maybe she got where this was going but wasn’t going to say anything.
Emma sighed. “I’ve been thinking about ways I can help girls like us, now that I don’t have the kind of money I used to. And I know this sounds like a crazy dream, but I thought it’d be cool to start a”—the word felt ridiculous on her tongue, but she said it anyway—“company. A bakery. And employ people like us who need a job, a first job to get started on the way to whatever they want to be. I even think I know where I could get the funding to start.” What would likely seem a giant outlay of money to her, Cash wouldn’t even notice. And he’d always been interested in her work with Empower, donating whenever they needed anything, like the work meant something to him. She couldn’t help but think of his enigmatic comment—that he was old enough to have lived many lives. “But you’re right. I’m a chicken. Too chicken to try and start something like that by myself.”
Dez shot her the wildest look, like she spoke some kind of new crazy… but there was hope in it. “But if you had somebody else, somebody a little crazier—a little bolder…”
“Then maybe we could make a go of it. If the world don’t end, that is.”
Dezi stared out the windshield, her face back to screwed up. “I’m going to have to think about that for a bit.”
“Take your time. We got a zombie apocalypse to get through first.”
“Emma?”
“Hm?”
“I thought about it. Let’s do it.”
Chapter Twenty
“The vaccine’s not working.” Javier closed his eyes and tried to breathe through the panic as he mentally named every brain chemical he could think of. He, Rhiannon, and Trey—who was a quite adept tech—had set up a work space as best they could. He’d been able to determine that it was, in fact, a rabies derivative. But magic wasn’t something a spectrometer could pick up on, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why the immunoglobulin he’d shot into his system wasn’t reacting to the antigen and killing off the virus. “Think your crystal ball could help?” he ground out, mostly sarcastic… but, sadly, also a little hopeful.
Rhiannon shot him a death look. “Sure. What do you want me to ask it? I have nothing to go on. I’m not a Vodou practitioner, but I’m sure many of the basic magic principles are the same. However, I have no fucking clue what she did! Is there a poppet? Or a potion? Law of contagion? A blood sacrifice? I have no information.”
He set his jaw. “So sorry I didn’t bring my alchemical lab. Or a machine that can measure the amount of hocus in your pocus. Maybe if witches spent more time following the scientific method and less communing with moonlight and pretending to talk to unicorns, they’d figure out some shit—like, you know, hard data!”
“Oh yeah? Well my unicorn says to shut your face!”
“Real mature.”
To make everything better, Danielle slunk into the room, her “I think I’m a mom now” face on. “What in God’s name are you two going on about this time?”
Rhiannon glared right at him as she said, “He’s being an asshole.”
“Magic is useless and stupid,” he shot back.
“Oh yeah? What un-Liberi-ed you last summer?” Rhiannon asked.
“That’s not a word!” he said.
“Children!” Danielle yelled, a surprising amount of oomph in her voice. “Stop it.”
“I’m not a child,” he groused at her. His phone rang.
“Hush and answer your phone. Rhiannon, your brother’s going to turn into one of them if you don’t work together. If he’s a little testy, have some patience with him.”
“Of course you take his side.”
“She never takes my side. Only when I’m turning into a zombie, apparently. Gee, I should’ve tried this before.”
Emma was calling. His breath caught as his hand started to tremble. She wanted video.
“She always takes your side, you’re just never around to see it.”
“It’s like you’re both in elementary school again, Jiminy Christmas.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m six years older. We were never in elementary together.” He answered the phone. Emma’s face filled the screen, her blue eyes looking hellaciously wigged-out. “You okay?” Why was he asking her?
“Uh… I’m in front of this, uh, altar thing? Me and Dez’rae are at her apartment, and she’s trying to show me the uh, the thing she did.”
An electric jolt of hope ran through him. “You got Dez’rae to help?
“Lemme see.” Rhiannon popped up over his shoulder, grabbing the phone. His first instinct was to stop her, then he let go.
“Javi, she don’t know how to undo it. But I told her it’d help if you and Rhi at least knew what happened.”
“It’ll help a lot!” Rhi announced. “Put Dez’rae on.”
“I gotta warn you, this thing is freaky. I don’t know what kinda dark magic—”
“Just put her on. I can handle dark magic,” his sister barked at the phone.
The phone bounced around a candlelit closet full of statues and rum bottles and a cluttered assortment that looked a lot like a small version of the altar from the ceremony they’d witnessed. It didn’t look all that freaky, just different from what the typical American saw on the regular.
Dez’rae’s face came on, her eyes still rolling. “It’s not dark… Okay, I cast one dark magic spell. Vodou is not all dark magic.” She glared through the phone, brown eyes intense. “Who’s the skinny bitch I’m looking at?”
“Rhiannon, Queen Modron’s apprentice. You cursed my brother.”
“Queen who? And what’d he do to get his ass cursed?”
“Queen of the vampires. And my brother rescued your ass from a strip mall—I should know, I was there with him.”
Dez looked confused at the vampire reference, but then her face softened. “Oh. Your brother’s the doctor?” She looked down, then back up with a nod. “Okay. I’ll show you what I did.” Then she scowled away from the camera, toward Emma, he assumed. “Don’t touch that.”
Javier looked around the makeshift lab, trying to think of something he could do. He came up blank. “What can I…?”
Rhiannon glared at him. “You can stop hovering while I talk this over, witch to witch, without your cynicism. Go find hurt people to patch up or something.”
“But—”
She looked up at the ceiling, as if seeking patience from on high. “Javi! I know how you feel about what I do—”
“I believe magic is real.”
“But you don’t like my methods—they aren’t scientific enough for you. I don’t have time for your skepticism. I need you to leave so I can think. Just… have a little faith, okay? Not in magic, in me. I need you to have faith in me.”
Fear clawed up his insides at the thought of pinning the fate of his mind on witchcraft. But Rhiannon looked at him with her giant eyes full of hope, and he realized he had to. He nodded, then toed his satchel toward her. “Rabies vaccine is in there. It comes in two parts. They’re labeled. I don’t know if that’ll help—I injected myself, but it hasn’t done any good. But the”—he had to spit the word out—“the curse is based on rabies, so I figured I’d try.”
Instead of looking offended, Rhiannon looked thoughtful, then shook her head, dismissing it. “But it didn’t help.”
“Did you take it with blood?” Emma’s accent twanged over the phone.
“With blood?” Then he realized what she was talking about. Vampires couldn’t get drunk or high unless they drank it or took it with blood—the alcohol or whateve
r it was just slid right through their system and out. In fact, nothing seemed to affect a vampire that didn’t go through the digestive tract mixed with blood. “The vaccine is an injection. Would you have to add blood to the injection? Or find a way to metabolize the vaccine?”
“I don’t know. I’m no doctor. But it ain’t gonna do shit for you if you don’t drink it with blood.”
“But injecting the vaccine may work on humans,” Javier said, glancing at his sister and suddenly wishing they had a whole lot more. “Rhi…”
Rhiannon wrinkled her nose in displeasure. “I see where you’re going with this, and fine. Ready your needles.”
“It’s not a fun couple of shots, but…” He opened the bag and started prepping it for his sister anyway.
“But it’s better than craving brains. Stick me.”
He held up the first one. “This is the vaccine. It starts protecting you in about seven days.”
“Optimistic I’ll make it that long, are you?”
After giving her a shot in the deltoid, he held up another syringe. “HRIG—human rabies immunoglobulin. This is a prophylactic until then. Goes in the hip—unless you’ve been bitten, then the site of the wound.” She shoved her jeans aside, and he finished the inoculation, praying to whatever god or gods there might or might not be that this would protect her.
“Got it and ouch. Now get out of here. Tend the wounded. Make sure we don’t have anybody else about to rise.” She gave him another hopeful glance as she rubbed the second shot. If you do have thoughts about vaccines, text”—she looked at his phone in her hands—“or get Danielle to text me.”
He frowned at the thought of relying on his mother but nodded anyway. With nothing else he could do, he exited the room.
“Can I help you tend to the wounded?” Danielle asked, sounding nervous. “That sounds important.”
“I don’t even know how many wounded we have.”
They jogged down a staircase into the main parlor. The door was open, and shots cracked outside, Javier assumed from the roof, as another group of survivors was ushered in. Scarlet’s employees herded them back farther into the building as Miguel stood guard.
Juliana stood with what appeared to be a death grip on a smile and panic in her stance. Javier headed her way. “What’s going on?”
Her pleasant demeanor cracked just a tad. “We’re collecting survivors. I want to help everyone, but I don’t know how we’re going to handle it. We don’t have the necessary supplies—or food. We have no intake system. We have no way of knowing who’s been bitten—or what to do with anyone who has.”
Javier nodded. “Triage. I can handle that part. Bring everyone into the ballroom for intake. Do you have anyone who could help me?”
“Ana!” she called out. When a harried woman with a thick, black braid headed their way, Juliana turned back to him and said quietly, “We have a nurse on staff. She’s good but gets overwhelmed. Give her a task and she’ll get it done.”
He nodded. She didn’t make decisions well in chaos but could follow directions—he’d worked with several people like that. When Ana reached them, he offered his hand to shake. “I’m Dr. Reyes from East Side Children’s.”
Instead of shaking his hand, she took it in both hands and squeezed in relief. “Oh, thank the Virgin.”
“Can you get an intake line formed up in the ballroom? Separate out anyone injured. We also need to set up a private location to check for marks. Everyone gets checked—even people who were already here. We need to be thorough and fair.” The irony of someone with an advanced stage of the disease issuing quarantine orders wasn’t lost on him. Sofia, Rhiannon’s friend, watched him from a couch, looking ready to spring into action. He motioned her over and did a quick intro. “Ana, Sofia, Sofia, Ana. Sofia’s a therapist, she can help.”
Rhiannon came charging down the stairs, Trey running behind her. “Jav! Jav!”
He waved to his sister, then nodded to his triage team. “Go. I’ll send Trey—or someone—in to help.”
To his relief, the women sprang into action, and his shoulders relaxed with the confidence that he could show up in the ballroom with enough order to get started.
His shoulders immediately rebunched when Rhi announced, “I’m going to Dezi’s.”
“What? No. No way. You’re nuts. No one’s going out there.”
She looked pale but shook her head. “I need to be there. The phone’s great, but it’s not enough. I need to—don’t think I’m crazy—I need to feel the magic.”
“You’re not running through a zombie war zone to feel magic. No.”
Her jaw set as she handed him his phone back. “You want to diagnose a highly complicated cluster of symptoms over a cell phone video? Or do you want to see the patient?” She stuck a finger out. “And don’t you dare tell me it’s different. It’s not. Some things you need to be in person for.”
Miguel sidled up next to them. “I’ll take her.”
The front door was shut, and Sofia had enlisted more help—including Danielle—sorting people into a rough line, bringing semi-calm to the frightened chaos.
Javier held a finger up, trying to handle one detail at a time. “Trey, we’re setting up triage in the ballroom. Go help Ana sort the injured out.” The man, who’d been a lifesaver so far, nodded and jogged off.
Javier rounded on Miguel. “I thought you were in charge.”
The man scowled and went off in half Spanish, half English. “Yeah, and I’m saying if you want the witch to get safely through the neighborhood, I’m the one to go with her. I know these streets, I’m an excellent shot, and fuck it, I’m in charge, so shut your piehole.”
Rhiannon looked at him like he was Satan incarnate. “I’m not going with him.”
Miguel rolled his eyes. “Eh, princess, if you’re leaving this building, you’re going with me. Get me? If you’re the one making a cure, you gotta be the safest person here, and you taking off alone isn’t safe. You need someone to watch your scrawny ass.”
Rhi turned to Javier with a mulish look. He knew her too well. She didn’t mind his crudeness. She hated all drug dealers on principle. “Not going with—”
“Remember when Danielle nearly got arrested for stealing a salt lick because she thought they could electrocute it and get ephedrine?” Because brewing meth from a recipe you found on the internet was a fantastic idea. “Blame the right person.”
Miguel started laughing. “Aw, man. Dumbass tweakers. Skip the dealer, poison yourself or blow your ass up.”
Rhiannon looked like she’d turn him into a toad if that was a real spell. “Not. Going. With. Him.”
Javier put his hands on her shoulders and wished for once—probably, actually, the billionth time in his life—that Rhi wasn’t stubborn as a hippo. “None of us have the leeway to be prejudiced right now. I have a prostitute setting up medical equipment and examining injuries. We have drug dealers in charge of our defenses. We have black people and Latinos and gringos all stuck in a cramped space. And we’re all going to work together so we don’t turn into a slaughterhouse.”
He looked around the room at the huddled people as the realization sank in that they were probably going to die here. He’d striven his whole goddamned life to get out of the east side, and here he was, surrounded by everything he’d tried to leave. He could’ve stayed at the hospital. He could’ve gone to CoVIn and used their equipment. He could’ve just run. But he was here, barricaded in a brothel that was itself within a barricade. It was where he’d chosen to go. These were his people, where he made his last stand.
It astonished him to realize he was at peace with that.
He looked at the floor, then back up. “We’re all sinners here. We’re prostitutes and dealers, addicts and illegal immigrants. We’re poor. We’ve spent our lives moving from home to home, debt and regret and loss following in our wake. Outside the barricade, we are considered acceptable casualties. But we are not going to accept that in here. We are here because we ar
e survivors. No matter what life has thrown our way, we kept going, one foot in front of the other, and those steps led us here. When we look at each other tonight as we fight for our lives, that’s what we’re going to see—not a job, a race, a birthplace—a fellow survivor. We weren’t victims before when we were beaten down, denied, and tossed out. And we aren’t going to be victims now. We’re going to survive. And we’re going to do it working together. We don’t have time or room for anything else.”
Rhiannon closed her eyes, and her whole body shook on an intake of breath as a tear slid down her cheek. To his deep relief, she nodded. “I’ll go with him. This one time.”
Javier squeezed her shoulders, nodding along with her. “This one time.” He let her go. “As long as ‘this one time’ encompasses all the time until we’re safely out of here.” If they managed that.
“Until we’re safe.” She narrowed her eyes at Miguel but tilted her head toward the door. “Let’s go… survivor.”
As they started toward the exit, Javier realized the room had gotten quiet, everyone staring at him. His face heated at the attention. Danielle wound her way through the crowd and stopped in front of him, like she’d felt compelled to come to him but didn’t know what to do now. Typical. And typical him, he stood there full of old anger instead of trying to move forward. He made a new decision and moved forward—physically—putting his arms around his mom and hoping for the best.
She gasped out something that sounded almost like a sob, and her arms wrapped around him fiercely. It was odd, hugging his mother—something that shouldn’t be odd.
At the door, Rhiannon smiled softly at him and nodded her approval, as if she was happy to see he was taking his own advice. Then she and Miguel slipped out the door. Shots cracked from above them, Cash and Alex clearing a path. Fear made Javier bolt toward the stairs to see for himself that Rhi made it out, and he grabbed Danielle’s hand, pulling her along.
Up on the roof, Cash was focused on the street, but as if he sensed their presence, he yelled, “What the ever-fucking hell is Rhi doing?”
